The villages around Hunter's Moon

Hunter's Moon sits in the parish of West Bradley, on the slopes of Pennard Hill between Glastonbury and Shepton Mallet, in a cluster of small villages that once all belonged to Glastonbury Abbey. Orchards, church towers, tithe barns and a pub or two: this is the quiet Somerset that most visitors drive straight past.

West Bradley

Our own village is a scatter of farms and houses around a small medieval church, St Mary's, first recorded as a chapel of Glastonbury Abbey in 1168 and restored in 1874. The parish sits five miles east of Glastonbury on the old Somerset and Dorset railway line, and the old station house at West Pennard still stands. West Bradley was famous for its apples: the orchards between here and Baltonsborough are among the largest in the county and the village once had its own cider works. In spring they are a sea of blossom; in autumn the lanes smell of apples. Bradley Way, the lane the cottage stands on, leads down from the church to the fields of the Levels.

West Pennard

Two miles along the A361 towards Glastonbury, West Pennard is the local village for shopping and the pub. The Lion at Pennard serves food and local ales, there is a village shop and post office, a primary school, and the fifteenth-century church of St Nicholas with a fine tower. Just outside the village is West Pennard Court Barn, a fourteenth-century tithe barn of Glastonbury Abbey, now owned by the National Trust and one of the earliest buildings the Trust ever acquired. The village's great claim to fame is cheese: in 1840 a Pennard cheddar weighing more than half a ton, made from the milk of 750 cows, was presented to Queen Victoria. See farm shops and food.

Pilton

Four miles east on the Shepton Mallet road, Pilton is a pretty village on a steep hillside best known as the home of Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm. Its church of St John the Baptist has a magnificent carved and painted wagon roof, and below it stands another Abbey tithe barn, restored after a fire and now used for the village's Pilton Barn concerts and events. The Pilton Inn has a walled garden, and the Pennard Vineyard and Wraxall Vineyard are on the hills either side. See Glastonbury Festival.

Baltonsborough

South of the cottage across the orchards, Baltonsborough is a larger village on the River Brue, the birthplace in 909 of St Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury, Archbishop of Canterbury and one of the great figures of Saxon England. The church is dedicated to him. There was a church here by 1168, and the village includes the hamlet of Southwood. The Greyhound pub is at the centre, and the Baltonsborough heritage walk along the Brue is one of the Avalon Marshes circular routes; see walks.

East Pennard and Ditcheat

East Pennard, on the far side of Pennard Hill, has a church with a Norman font and a manor house that has hosted village cricket for a century, and Pennard Vineyard at its edge. Ditcheat, a couple of miles further, is a village of racehorses: the trainer Paul Nicholls's Manor Farm Stables has sent out multiple Grand National and Gold Cup winners, and on winter mornings you may meet strings of horses on the lanes. The church of St Mary Magdalene has a rare medieval wall painting of St Michael and a screen of 1493, and the Manor House Inn is a good pub.

Further along the lanes

• Butleigh: a handsome village with the Rose & Portcullis pub and a monument to Admiral Hood on the hill above
• Evercreech: famous church tower, and Westcombe Dairy and Wild Beer at Westcombe Farm
• Croscombe: on the Wells road, with the finest Jacobean church woodwork in Somerset and the George Inn
• Castle Cary: a small market town with a round lock-up, the mainline station and The Newt's bakery, eight miles away
• Bruton: medieval town on the Brue with Hauser & Wirth, At the Chapel and the dovecote on the hill
• Godney and Meare: Levels villages to the west with the Sheppey pub, the Abbot's Fish House and the lake village site

Exploring from the door

All these villages are linked by quiet lanes ideal for cycling, and by footpaths and bridleways over Pennard Hill; see walks and dog walks. Their churches are described on our churches page, and their pubs on the pubs page. For the bigger picture of Abbey, Tor and Avalon, see the history of the area.